With the New Year around the corner, we look back at 2022 and some of the amazing things that have happened at the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), and celebrate some of our achievements and those people who made it possible.

The jewel in the crown is how CEO Steve Foxley described the AMRC as he painted a colourful picture of the amazing projects done by the AMRC in the past 12 months and heaped praise on the teams who make up the AMRC family - pointing to successes from Rotherham and Sheffield, to Lancashire and North Wales - and how they worked together to deliver industrial innovation and research. 

He said: “I want to say a massive thank you to all the teams here at the AMRC for their hard work, dedication, the energy they bring to the AMRC and for everything they have done over the past 12 months. This place is incredible. It has something special in its DNA and all of that is a result of the sum of every single contribution they all make individually.”

And it’s certainly been a busy year.

AMRC Cymru made a spectacular entry into the first months of 2022 by receiving a £3.5 million grant from the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) to establish a Manufacturing Data Centre of Excellence in Broughton, Wales to develop technologies that help Welsh manufacturers capture, handle and visualise the data they generate more efficiently. 

Fast-forward to April, and the AMRC came in with full strength to deliver Project ELLI - Electrification and Lightweighting in Industry 4.0. Described as ‘the AMRC on four wheels’, Project ELLI was demonstrated at MACH 22 and showcased novel technology from every AMRC group, who collaborated and worked together on the project to show the full suite of capabilities on offer at the AMRC.

Steve said: “Project ELLI was probably the first major event that we’ve done after lockdown and we absolutely smashed it out of the park. It was incredible and it was a brilliantly executed week at MACH.”

Project ELLI epitomises all that is important to the AMRC and its partners, as industry increasingly considers sustainability on a par with productivity and profitability. ELLI now sits as a beacon of achievement in the reception foyer at the AMRC’s flagship Factory 2050.

The summer saw new innovation assets coming into the region across various capabilities ranging from nuclear, hydrogen electrolysis and fuel cells to sustainable aviation fuels.

Steve added: “We are blessed in this region that we’ve got some of the most exciting innovation assets in sustainability and transition to low carbon.”

The Translational Energy Research Centre (TERC) and the Sustainable Aviation Fuels Innovation Centre (SAF-IC) are two newly opened innovation assets, both based at the University of Sheffield Innovation District and forming part of the University’s Energy Institute.

While Translational Energy Research Centre is one of the largest, best-equipped zero-carbon energy, hydrogen, bioenergy, carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) and sustainable aviation fuels research and development facilities in Europe, SAF-IC is the first research and testing centre of its kind in the UK to develop, test, validate and characterise new zero carbon and sustainable aviation fuels.

The AMRC will work alongside both these world-class facilities to make a green industry and a decarbonised aerospace sector a reality.

Moving forward, the Economic Impact Analysis report published this year explained why the AMRC matters to UK manufacturing and how it impacts people’s lives. It set out how the AMRC is a magnet for capital investment, acts as a lever for improved social mobility through its training centre, and is a signature asset that brought more than £260m and 600 jobs to South Yorkshire.

Rolling into August, as part of the £22.5m Bogie Beam project, the AMRC’s Machining Group was successful in reducing the weight of an aerospace component for landing gear by 20 per cent. 

Steve called it a substantial improvement, adding that AMRC experts optimised the process to improve efficiency and extended the component’s life from 12 to 20 years, proving the potential of making these large aerospace components here in the UK and supporting the vision for cleaner aviation. 

Phil Kirkland, head of the AMRC’s Machining Group, said the work undertaken by his team has - quite literally - been one its biggest machining challenges in recent times and represents ’a major step forward for the group’.

The Industrial Partner Board held in October highlighted the theme of digitalisation, the breadth of work done across all seven groups of the AMRC and how digitalisation is embedded in every part of what the AMRC does. This included the work undertaken by the Casting group on mould manufacturing processes; AMRC Cymru’s work on creating digital roadmaps for SMEs; AMRC North West being the country’s biggest 5G test bed for manufacturing; the Machining Group’s digital twin project and the Design and Prototyping Group’s MediTel research project.

The digital theme continued in 2022 with the launch of AMRC’s Data Cloud and Data Science Academy in collaboration with the Local Enterprise Partnership and training provider EyUp Skills to unlock a new wave of industrial innovation. First of its kind, the AMRC Data Cloud will enable manufacturers to take advantage of the data they generate from their operations and gain new insights. 

Funded through the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult, the AMRC launched NextGen, a £867,000 pilot programme to accelerate the adoption of low-cost digital technologies in manufacturing across the UK. Research engineers at the AMRC’s sites in both South Yorkshire and North Wales have joined forces with the University of Sheffield AMRC Training Centre to deliver it.

The AMRC and AMRC Training Centre is ending the year on a high with the Technicians: The David Sainsbury Gallery at the Science Museum that opened to the public in November. 

Apprentices, engineers and technicians from the AMRC Training Centre and University of Sheffield AMRC feature alongside a stellar line-up of inspirational technical superheroes from Marvel Studios, the NHS and National Grid, celebrating the vital role technicians play in our everyday lives. 

As demand for the role of technicians and their skills continues to increase, the gallery seeks to change perceptions and aims to inspire the next generation to take up technical careers.

Steve said: “As we wrap up 2022, it’s fair to say that it has been a busy year for everyone at the AMRC and 2023 will not be any different with all the exciting things coming up but we’re ready for everything that’s in store.”